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“It’s fine, I can get up.” He rolled over to his side and attempted to rise, but clearly he was dizzy from the fall, and to try to balance himself, he grabbed on to whatever was near, and that happened to be my robe.
With one quick yank on the end, the silky belt easily untied, and the whole thing came off me like a magician pulling the tablecloth out from under an entire setting, and there I stood in nothing but Spanx.
I screamed, Scarlett screamed, and Daniel—still clutching my robe in his hand—fell back again, unable to stand. I quickly grabbed my robe out of his clutches and, using it to cover me like a flimsy shield, ran back toward the building where I should have stayed with Scarlett and the other bridesmaids.
In the end, Daniel was taken to a local urgent care, was told he had a concussion but was deemed okay to walk down the aisle and was only thirty minutes late for his own wedding.
Every time we get together the story comes up, but it always seems to be half-naked me that’s the highlight, and not idiot Daniel who tried to climb a trellis.
Mila
“THIS WAS NOT PART OF the plan,” I say to Nadia as I give her a thumbs-up in the dimly lit bathroom that she’s dragged me into.
We’re in an upscale steakhouse in LoDo, where I was able to reserve a private dining room for the eight friends of Nadia and seven friends of Shane for this combined bachelor and bachelorette party. And okay, it was actually Britain who made the reservation.
The night has gone perfectly well so far. We’ve dined on steaks and lobster, drunk fancy wine, and laughed and chatted. It’s been a dressy affair, per Nadia’s request, as well as an expensive one, per Shane’s. He didn’t say “expensive,” exactly, but he requested the restaurant, and it’s definitely a pricey one. But he’s footing the bill, so he gets to choose.
The plan was to eat dinner, drink wine, have dessert, roast the bride and groom (we all got some good verbal jabs in there), and then part ways afterward. This would get us home at a decent hour because even though it’s Saturday night, I’ve got tons to do tomorrow with dinner at Everett’s and packing for next week because I leave for Oahu to test GlobeTrotter with Grayson on Tuesday. Oh, and I also get to unwillingly be in a wedding and probably (read: most likely) mess it up. I’ve been trying not to think about that. Some people might call that denial, but I like to think of it as compartmentalization. It hasn’t been hard because I’ve been so busy doing wedding stuff and work stuff that the whole traveling to a tropical island with my hot boss and attending Nadia’s wedding part hasn’t even felt real.
Also not real: the way Grayson is looking tonight. When he showed up in that slim charcoal-gray suit with a light-pink button-up underneath, I nearly choked on my drink. Actually, that’s exactly what I did—there was noalmostabout it. I took a sip of water just as he walked in, my ovaries did a little jumping thing, and the liquid went down the wrong tube, causing me to cough until my eyes watered. What a great way to kick off the night. I do love a man in pink, and oh my, can he pull it off. My life would be so much easier if Grayson looked more like a goblin.
I wasn’t the only one to notice his beauty. Nadia’s sisters went slack jawed when they saw him, and Brittany and Fiona have both made it very obvious they are interested, which I knew would happen and is why I had preplanned the seating for the dinner with Grayson on one end and Brittany and Fiona on the opposite. And yes, it was petty and childish, and no, I don’t regret it.
But as it turns out, this perfectly planned elegant dinner wasn’t enough for Nadia. She’d expected dancing. It should be noted that she never mentioned this when I first told her what we’d be doing. She loved the restaurant idea and thanked me and Britain for planning it. She didn’t believe for a second that I did it on my own. But apparently, she’s now decided that all along she wanted to go dancing, and because—as has already been stated—Shane will do anything to please her, he made a call, and now a big stretch limo is on its way to come pick us up at the restaurant and take us over to some nightclub on the other side of town.
“You’re being ridiculous, Mila Banks,” she says, giving me a thumbs-up in return before turning toward the ornate mirror to touch up her lipstick. “This is my last weekend as a single woman. Dancing the night away is exactly how I want to spend it.”
“The night away?” I can’t help the horror in my tone. I wouldn’t be dancing at all if I could help it.
She waves the words away with a swipe of her hand. “I swear, for twenty-eight, you are more like fifty-eight.” She stands back from the mirror and adjusts the straps of her black wrap dress with the high slit.
“I see nothing wrong with this,” I tell her. If being in bed before midnight and falling asleep toThe Great British Bake Offis wrong, then I don’t want to be right.
Her phone lights up, brightening the room. “The limo’s here,” she says, seeing a text from Shane, a big grin on her face. “Come on, Mila—let’s go have some more fun.”
I AMNOTHAVING FUN.
I tried, honestly. I decided in the super fancy limo on the way here that I was going to make the most of it. This is my best friend’s wedding, after all, and I haven’t been to a nightclub in a while. It’s possible this could be the last one I ever go to … if the wish I made on a star through the glass sunroof of our transportation comes true. At least I think it was a star. It could have been a plane. That would be my luck.
So, when we walked into the swanky club with the shiny tile floors and the plush velvet seating and were escorted over to a VIP section that’s been roped off (still not sure how Shane scored that), I felt like I should do my best to have fun because I had deemed it the last night Mila would ever be in a nightclub. Cue happy face.
Except that I forgot some important things. First of all, I don’t dance. My dancing career began and ended at Everett’s wedding. It’s been a rare occasion that I’ve been on a dance floor since then, and usually it’s because I’m at a wedding and there’s some kind of bridal party dance I’m obliged to be a part of. And secondly, the last time I was in a club was with Monty and my old gang from LogicSphere in some flashy place in Seattle. While that wasn’t a bad night per se, the memory of who I was with taints it all, which in turn gives me a bad taste in general for nightclubs.
So here I sit, in the VIP area, in my dusty-blue A-line dress with the spaghetti straps and the fuller skirt, a glass of something red in my hand as I watch everyone on the dance floor. Everyone, including Grayson. Brittany was the one to coax him out there. My plan to keep her and Fiona from my boss was moot once we got here. Now they’re both dancing and smiling with him, and I’m sitting here like a loser. By choice. I’m a loser by choice.
I guess as far as nights go, sitting here watching the BILK’s excellent dance moves (because of course he can dance) isn’t the worst thing I could be doing tonight. And I suppose that for a nightclub, this one is pretty cool, with a matrix of LED lights on the dance floor and a DJ that’s not playing house music, but rather songs we all know.
The song ends just as another one starts playing, and I see Grayson making his way through the crowded dance floor and toward the VIP area. He checked his jacket at the door on the way in and is now walking toward me with the sleeves of his light-pink shirt rolled up. I’m not sure when the man finds time to work out because it seems to me, and everyone else in the office, that he’s always working, but it’s clear he does some kind of exercise by the definition in his forearms alone. And also by the way his biceps push up against his sleeves. My gosh, the man is beautiful. I know I keep saying this, but trust me, most breathing humans would agree.
“Hello,” he says as he enters the roped-off area.
“Hey there,” I say, giving him a small tip of my drink as an added greeting. I think I was going for cool, but when the wine nearly sloshed over the side, I remembered that being cool is not really my forte.
He takes a seat next to me on the high-backed purple velvet tufted love seat. The couch is smaller than expected and he’s so close we’re touching from hip to knee. I can feel his body heat from all the dancing and smell his cologne.
It should be noted that there are two other love seats and a couple of armchairs in the space, but he chose to sit next to me. Which is … nothing. It’snothing. I will make nothing of it because I have Dave. And okay, he’s fake, but we’re in a relationship. A fake one.
“How come you’re not out there?” he asks, leaning toward me so now our arms are touching, and I can feel his breath on my neck as the heavy bass of a song I don’t recognize gets louder.
